Best Dressed Fests

Bry Coo

I kept a terrible notebook for writing down all my scatterbrained thoughts on this trip. I say terrible, because if anyone was to pick it up and read it cold they’d assume I was a gibbering idiot. Much of it is random words. I also appear to have forgotten how to physically write (thank you, keyboards).

As one of those annoying people who doesn’t get jet-lag, I was bouncing around on our second day, raring to go. We visited Sukiya for breakfast. It’s a popular chain restaurant serving basic Japanese counter food. You buy a ticket from a machine, hand it to the server and a couple of minutes/seconds later you have a hot meal in front of you accompanied by unlimited cold barley tea. I went for rice with okra (slimy!), semi-poached egg, beef and onions, miso soup. The design of the counters is so clever and efficient — the staff can access anywhere and there is a lot of seating. I’d like to see places like this in the UK. They’re cheap and quick, ideal for the busy modern human.

After brek we walked to the Iriya Asagao Matsuri (Morning Glory Festival). [OK haha, yes, insert an obvious joke here]. It was FLOWERS. Many, many morning glory plants all stacked up and displayed along the pavement of Kototoi-dori Street and all the way into Shingen-ji Temple.





There were hordes of Yamato couriers zooming around, grabbing plant pots and labelling them, ready for delivery. It’s a kind of mitzvah to give and receive gifts like this at festival times. Also, there are a couple of seasons each year (July and December) where it is customary to give thank you presents. From 1–13 July is Ochugen and the morning glory festival falls handily into the gift giving period. It was a nice atmosphere, walking along the avenue of greenery and hearing the stall sellers, dressed in their traditional uniforms, call out to passers by.

The following day we visited…wait for it…more festivals! This time it was Japanese Lantern plants at the Hozuki-Ichi fair in Asakusa.

The weather was a bit bleh but lots of people were wearing their yukatas and getting into the spirit of the event. The industrious couriers were also present, stuffing their kei vans full of gifted botanical beauties.

We also popped by the Shitamachi Tanabata Festival but we were too early and it all seemed a bit dead, no parades, relatively few stalls and people. Lots of grizzled old dudes working crowd control though.

Even without a pumping festival atmosphere Asakusa is a fun district to visit, full of catering trade supply shops where you can buy the most specialised kitchen paraphernalia in the world, particularly along Kappabashi-dori.



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